An inaccurate report on the conspiratorial website InfoWars led
more than 100,000 individuals this week to sign an online petition calling for Comedy Central to
fire a comedian who tweeted a tasteless joke about Barron
Trump, President Donald Trump's 10-year-old son.

The problem? The New York City-based comedian doesn't and has
never worked for Comedy Central.

Jenni Runyan, a spokesperson for the comedy channel, confirmed to
Business Insider that the comedian, Stephen Spinola, "has never
been employed by Comedy Central."

The controversy started on Monday when InfoWars writer Paul
Joseph Watson, a prominent conspiracy theorist, wrongly
identified Spinola as a Comedy Central writer in a story about the comedian's tweet. A
spokesperson for InfoWars did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.

In the now-deleted tweet, Spinola joked that Trump's 10-year-old
son "looks like a very handsome date-rapist-to-be." In a
follow-up post, he doubled down.

Spinola told Business Insider he suspected that after "Saturday
Night Live" writer Katie Rich was suspended for a tweet on Trump's youngest
child that conservatives went searching for jokes other comedians
had made. At the time, his bio said he was a "Comedy Central
content contributor" because the channel had featured some of his
work on a show.

New York City comedian
Stephen Spinola.Facebook

But Spinola has never worked for the channel in any official
capacity. He has since deleted the tweets, acknowledging it was
insensitive to joke about Trump's child.

"I knew the tweets were wrong," he told Business Insider. "They
are just dumb. They weren't something I would say onstage or
something I stand by."

The apology, however, has not quelled the anger on the internet
directed at him. In addition to having thousands call for him to
be fired from a network at which he is not employed, others have
flooded him with messages online.

"On Monday, I woke up to over 800 Twitter notifications. People
were saying stuff on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube," he said.

Spinola said he was initially amused but grew concerned when he
started receiving cryptic death threats through social media and
directly on his phone.

"It was funny at first," he said of the attacks, "but then
someone sent me an old address of mine and my grandmother's name
asking how she was, insinuating they would hurt her."

Though he said his grandmother had died years ago, Spinola
said the constant flow of threats had him worried someone would
take action against another loved one.

"I had to delete every reference to my girlfriend online," he
said. "Any trace that I have to my girlfriend."

"I'm just hoping nobody is crazy enough to go through with any of
the threats," Spinola added. "Any time I hear a door close
outside my home now, I look out through my blinds."

The comedian said he found the whole incident surreal, and
repeatedly underscored that he didn't aim to "hurt Barron Trump's
feelings."

"I'm not political at all," Spinola told Business Insider. "I
tweet about what's trending to get more followers, and I was
making observations on Inauguration Day about what people looked
like."

"As a comedian, I make a lot of jokes that are not great," he
later added. "A lot of comedians make a lot of jokes that are not
great. I made a mistake by attacking a 10-year-old boy."

But Spinola did say he found it odd that people were defending
Barron Trump by "doing things 1,000 times worse."